Nunes, A.M.; Ferreira, D.C. A Critical Analysis of Decentralizing the Portuguese Public Healthcare Provision Services. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2022, 19, 13390.
Nunes, A.M.; Ferreira, D.C. A Critical Analysis of Decentralizing the Portuguese Public Healthcare Provision Services. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 13390.
Nunes, A.M.; Ferreira, D.C. A Critical Analysis of Decentralizing the Portuguese Public Healthcare Provision Services. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2022, 19, 13390.
Nunes, A.M.; Ferreira, D.C. A Critical Analysis of Decentralizing the Portuguese Public Healthcare Provision Services. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 13390.
Abstract
The Portuguese health system has a universal, public, general National Health Service (NHS), tending towards free healthcare access. Created in 1979, this delivery model developed from the integration and complementarity between the different response levels (primary, hospital, continuing, and palliative care). However, over these 40 years, the initially centralized system underwent a decentralization process with the creation of Regional Health Administrations in the five mainland administrative regions. Since then, the entire NHS has settled around this new organization. The most recent step started in 2018 with decentralizing primary health care skills to 190 municipalities. This paper presents the various critical issues involved in the latest gradual decentralization process in health, intending to bring services closer to the citizens, and more focused on their needs. The article identifies and discusses the implications of this experience based on the steps foreseen in the already published legal texts.
Keywords
Decentralization; National Health Service; Regional Health Administration; Primary Health Care; Portugal
Subject
Social Sciences, Political Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
